Last week, we looked at some Odds & Ends that didn’t really fit any particular category. This week, one last look back at some leftovers, starting with CFRB.
 
“Farming” Out Its Audience
 
Quick, what’s the first thing you think about when the call letters CFRB come to mind? Why, farmers of course. In this ad from 1941, the station brags that it reaches everywhere – including some 192,000 farmers.
 

 
Speaking of CFRB, is there something vaguely racist in this ad from 1944? I’m not sure they’d get away with this today.

 
It’s 1948 and even the Argos are airing on 1010:
 

 
Quiz shows were definitely a staple on ’RB in its early days. Like in 1949.
 

 
CFRB eventually went all talk, and remains in that format today. One of its first big stars was Charles Adler, now doing his thing in Vancouver out of Corus’ CKNW. But he sometimes refers to his days doing talk in the U.S. Here’s the proof it happened, from 1992. It’s somewhat ironic that the Conservative-leaning host was on a network called “Sun Radio,” considering what happened to the TV network by that name in Canada. 
           

 
TV Or Not TV – That Is The Question
 
CFRB owner Standard Broadcasting never did get the TV station it always wanted, but if it had, it seems like it would have been at least partially ethnic – and based not in Toronto, but nearby Newmarket.
 

 
Tickets To “Hamilton”
 
Corus now owns CHML, but if the folks at RB had their way, it would have been their sister station one town over in 1970. It’s mind boggling that it was CHIC that objected to the idea. 
 

 
For The “Record”
 
Just down the street from ’RB was CHUM, a place that not only became famous for playing records, but trying to make them as well. Which reminds me, whatever happened to the Tote Family?
 

 
In the mid-1960s, CKFH went after CHUM for Toronto’s Top 40 audience. So you can only imagine the atmosphere around this table, after Jimmy Ruffin came to town in 1967.
 

 
Meanwhile John Donabie continued a run of amazing radio over on 104.5
 

 
Two “Long Distance” Calls
 
Normally, a radio station worries about its own local audience. But in an unusual contest in 1946, one Quebec outlet was thinking about those listening far away.
 
 
Meanwhile, several years later in 1960, another long distance call created quite a DX mystery – for a while.
 
 
 
Interpreting David Marsden
 
David Mickie/Marsden made quite a mark in Toronto radio history, with gigs at CKEY, CHUM and CFNY. But he made a splash most of us probably never knew about in Montreal, too, as this 1968 story illustrates.
 

Speaking of famous (or infamous) announcers, it turns out a soon-to-be-famous troublemaking TV loudmouth was creating problems for his radio employers long before he hit the tube. Morton Downey Jr.’s eventual syndicated talk show was a magnet of weirdness and hate, and it appears he started early. From 1965:
 

The Ads They Are A-Changing
 
Talk about changing times. Compare these two ads for WBEN-AM Buffalo from 1961 and 1970.
 


 
We Interrupt These Programs
 
Some here may remember when Kenny Rogers wasn’t a country singer, but fronted a rock-folk type band called the First Edition. Somehow, they ended up as a sort of Can Con entry, when they taped a syndicated TV show out of CFTO in 1971.
 

 
You might recall Rollin’ On The River, but what the hell was this thing a year earlier?
 

 
Speaking of TV, Canadians are more than familiar with simultaneous substitution, the annoying practice of inserting a Canadian station for an American one when both are showing the same program. So it came as quite a surprise to see that back in 1967, the same thing appeared to be happening – but on the U.S. side of the border.
 

 
Would You Hire The Big Guy?
 
It’s hard to remember now what an impact WKRP in Cincinnati had on viewers and radio people alike. It was never a huge ratings-getter, but its indelible characters, led by Howard Hesseman’s Dr. Johnny Fever, seeped into public consciousness and never really went away. So the stars of that show decided to cash in while they could, including this remarkable ad featuring Gordon Jump, aka “Big Guy” Arthur Carlson.
 

 
Is This The True Story Behind Radio’s Most Famous Song About Radio?
 
This somehow seems to be the most appropriate way to sign off our Instant Replay series, with a famous song about radio. Over the years, the origins of Harry Chapin’s WOLD, about an aging disc jockey and his crumbling career and marriage, has been attributed to just about everyone from Joey Reynolds to Jackson Armstrong.
 
But in 1973, this article purported to tell the true story behind the hit – and credited its creation to a jock at none other than Buffalo’s WYSL.